TLP ’13 Recap: Respect

Each week on the blog, we’ll spend some time reviewing all of the great things that happened at the inaugural Truman Leadership Project. Today’s post will cover the first day of camp, which centered around the university value of respect.

Camp leaders Adee and Melissa anxiously await the arrival of our first campers.

After introductions and getting to know one another, campers split into groups with their camp leaders and came up with a list of goals and rules that we should have for the camp. Having fun and learning something new were two tops goals for everyone!

Each group also came up with a team name and designed their very own team flag. Each group took a different approach. Some groups, like the Blue Ribbons, wanted each person to add something to the flag, while the Purple Pandas wanted to keep theirs simple. It was great to hear how each team wanted to be represented!

The Purple Pandas hard at work designing their flag.

We discussed the meaning of respect, and after we came up with a pretty good definition, the campers split into two groups. The boys stayed with Grant Bracken from True North, who gave an awesome presentation on what it means to be a respectful male leader in today’s world. The girls journeyed over to the MU Women’s Center, and Director Suzy Day taught about self respect and empowerment in leadership.

Campers came back together to look at songs in popular culture and their lyrics. If the songs were not respectful, campers came up with ways to make them so. Lunchtime came next, and after eating our fill, it was time for some games!

Campers learned to work together through team building exercises like this one, where the group has to figure how to get across an imaginary river as a team.

In the afternoon, Julie Drury and Stefanie Zimmerman from the MU Office of Greek Life came to talk with campers about the idea of community service. We learned that all of our campers had already participated in some form of community service before coming to the Truman Leadership Project. What an amazing group! We knew by the end of the day Monday that we were in for an amazing week!

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About Us

The Truman Youth Leadership Academy is a community and campus collaboration facilitated by the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. We are a one-week summer daycamp for middle-school age students that explores leadership skills, civic involvement, and community service through the University of Missouri’s four core values: Respect, Responsibility, Discovery and Excellence.